Hukbalahap Rebellion

Hukbalahap Rebellion, (1946–54), Communist-led peasant uprising in central Luzon, Philippines. The name of the movement is a Tagalog acronym for Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon, which means “People’s Anti-Japanese Army.” The Huks came close to victory in 1950 but were subsequently defeated by a combination of advanced U.S. weaponry supplied to the Philippine government and administrative reforms under the charismatic Philippine president Ramon Magsaysay.

The central Luzon plain is a rich agricultural area where a large peasant population worked as tenant farmers on vast estates. The visible contrast between the wealthy few and the poverty-stricken masses was responsible for periodic peasant revolts during the Spanish period of Philippine history. During the 1930s central Luzon became a focus for Communist and Socialist organizational activities.

World War II brought matters to a head. Unlike many other Southeast Asians, the Filipinos offered strong resistance against the Japanese. After the fall of Bataan to the Japanese (April 1942), organized guerrilla bands carried on the fight for the remainder of the occupation period. The Hukbalahap organization proved highly successful as a guerrilla group and killed many Japanese troops. The Huks regarded wealthy Filipinos who collaborated with the Japanese as fair targets for assassination, and by the end of the war they had seized most of the large estates in central Luzon. They established a regional government, collected taxes, and administered their own laws.

The returning U.S. Army was suspicious of the Huks because of their Communist leadership. Tension between the Huks and the Philippine government immediately arose over the issue of surrender of arms. The Huks had gathered an estimated 500,000 rifles and were reluctant to turn them over to a government they regarded as oligarchic.

Philippine independence from the United States was scheduled for July 4, 1946. An election was held in April for positions in the new government. The Hukbalahap participated, and the Huk leader Luis Taruc won a seat in Congress but—along with some other Huk candidates—was unseated by the victorious Liberal Party. The Huks then retreated to the jungle and began their rebellion. Immediately after independence, Philippine president Manuel Roxas announced his “mailed fist” policy toward the Huks. The morale of government troops was low, however, and their indiscriminate retaliations against villagers only strengthened Huk appeal. During the next four years, the Manila government steadily slipped in prestige while Huk strength increased. By 1950 the guerrillas were approaching Manila, and the Communist leadership decided the time was ripe for a seizure of power.

The Huks suffered a crucial setback when government agents raided their secret headquarters in Manila. The entire Huk political leadership was arrested in a single night. At the same time, Huk strength was dealt another blow when U.S. President Harry Truman, alarmed at the worldwide expansion of Communist power, authorized large shipments of military supplies to the Manila government.

Another factor in the Huk defeat was the rise to power of the popular Ramon Magsaysay. His election as president in 1953 signaled a swing of popular support back to the Manila government. In 1954 Taruc emerged from the jungle to surrender, and the Hukbalahap Rebellion, for all practical purposes, came to an end.

The Huk movement and its leadership persisted, however, operating primarily from a stronghold in Pampanga province on Luzon Island. With the failure of subsequent Philippine administrations to implement the long-promised land reforms, the Huks—although split into factions and, in some areas, merged with new insurgent groups—continued into the 1970s as an active antigovernment organization.